Lyndhurst chef looks beyond "Hell's Kitchen"

Standout chef Justin Antiorio (calling out orders on the season closer of "Hell's Kitchen") "can't wait to get back into a kitchen."

The world saw Lyndhurst's Justin Antiorio lose the finale of Fox's "Hell's Kitchen" on Monday.

But Antiorio has known the result since June 2011, when, he says, the episode was actually taped. So he's had 15 months to digest his loss, and watching it Monday night was "a little bit of a release," he says Tuesday morning.

"Now I can move on with my life," he says, and promote himself "as Chef Justin — not Chef Justin from 'Hell's Kitchen.' "

Antiorio, 30, is speaking by phone from Los Angeles International Airport, waiting to catch a plane back to Newark after several days of publicity with the show's winner, Christina Wilson.

Antiorio, who became a standout on the show through his own cooking, feels his chances were handicapped by a final challenge in which he wasn't able to cook himself. Instead, he had to lead an entire dinner service that was prepared by his team of previously dismissed contestants, and says he wasn't permitted to show them how to fix problems.

"They want you to lead verbally and not physically, which is difficult. I don't know any kitchens where chefs … don't jump behind the line," he says, referring to how problems are fixed.

Ultimately, he speculates that Chef Gordon Ramsay didn't think his eclectic cooking style was a good match for the show's grand prize, a $250,000 job as chef at Gordon Ramsay Steak at Paris Las Vegas.

"I'm a little more detailed than steak on a plate and creamed spinach," he says.

In the end, he says, he learned a lot from working with Ramsay and is "not that upset" about the loss. "I want to do my own thing, and I want to run my own restaurant the way I want to run it."

His ideal would be a contemporary American restaurant with 40 to 50 seats, a place small enough where he can control every dish and interact with customers.

It would most certainly be in North Jersey, though he's not sure where. He says some concepts might work in Hoboken, and he's attracted to the Ramsey/Mahwah area because it's somewhat farther from Manhattan.

The Institute of Culinary Education graduate says Fox contractually limited him in what he could pursue before the show aired; now he plans to work his contacts in earnest. He had been wary about commiting himself to much before the show aired (he notes that he worked at the 21 Club in Manhattan for seven years and at Highlawn Pavilion in West Orange for three).

"I'm not walking into a job and signing a deal for a year when I know the end result may be me leaving," he says.

So he spent the last 15 months doing freelance jobs such as catering; since the show began airing, he has been pursuing public appearances.